ELENA started as a European research initiative funded under the IST programme of the European Commission from September 2002 to May 2005.

The interdisciplinary research team followed the vision of creating Smart Spaces for LearningTM. These are open environments that support learners in optimising their learning management. The mission of the ELENA project was to demonstrate the feasibility of Smart Spaces for LearningTM.

The ELENA mission was achieved by the following objectives:

Analysis of existing standards for modelling learning-relevant data beyond learning objects and provision of recommendations for their further development.

Design and implementation of a Smart Space for LearningTM that integrates heterogeneous services such as assessment services, content brokerage, learning management and human resources management.

Testing the applicability of Smart Spaces for LearningTM in the field of education and training from a business and organizational perspective and draw conclusions for the design of intelligent environments in this field.

Development of best practice guidelines for deploying Smart Spaces for LearningTM from an organizational, technological and pedagogical perspective.

ELENA involved 11 partners from 6 different European countries.Their efforts resultet in various innovative systems (e.g. HCD Suite) designed to support goal-driven human capital development processes by providing full-fledged services for identifying and satisfying knowledge gaps and matching them with offers from different service providers according to the needs of the company and the individual learner.